CHAPTER II
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AT SEA.—INCIDENTS.—SEA SOCIABILITY.—A YARN.—SEA LIFE.—CHARACTERS.—ENGLISH RADICALS.—SKEPTICS.—EDUCATION.—FRENCH INFIDELITY.—PHRENOLOGY.—THEOLOGY.
_At Sea, May 28._
[Sidenote: _THE VOYAGE._]
We are reckoned to-day to be about one hundred and fifty miles to the westward of Cape Clear; ship close-hauled, heading north, with a very dim prospect of the termination of our voyage. It has been thus far rather dull and uneventful. We three have never been obliged to own ourselves actually sea-sick, but at any time during the first week we could hardly have declared that we felt perfectly well, and our appetites seemed influenced at every meal as if by a gloomy apprehension of what an hour might bring forth. Most of the other passengers have been very miserable indeed. I notice they recover more rapidly in the steerage than in the cabin. This I suppose to be owing to their situation in the middle of the ship, where there is the least motion, to their simple diet, and probably to their having less temptation to eat freely, and greater necessity to “make an effort,” and move about in fresh air.
We have met one school of small whales. There might have been fifty of them, tumbling ponderously over the waves, in sight at once. Occasionally one would rise lazily up so near, that, as he caught sight of us, we could seem to see an expression of surprise and alarm in his stolid, black face, and then he would hastily throw himself under again, with an energetic slap of his flukes.
One dark, foggy night, while we were “on the Banks,” we witnessed a rather remarkable exhibition of marine pyrotechny. The whole water, as far as we could see, was lustrous white, while nearer the eye it was full of spangles, and every disturbance, as that caused by the movement of the ship, or the ripples from the wind, or the surging of the sea, was marked by fire flashes. Very singular spots, from the size of one’s hand to minute sparks, frequently floated by, looking like stars in the milky-way. We noticed also several schools, numbering hundreds, of what seemed little fishes (perhaps an inch long), that darted here and there, comet-like, with great velocity. I tried, without success, to catch some of these. It was evident that, _besides the ordinary_ phosphorescent animalcula, there were various and distinct varieties of animated nature around us, such as are not often to be observed.
Some kind of sea-bird we have seen, I think, every day, and when at the greatest distance from land. Where is their home? is an oft-repeated question, and, What do they eat? They are mysteries, these feathered Bedouins. To-day, land and long-legged shore birds are coming on board of us. They fly tremulously about the ship, sometimes going off out of sight and back again, then lighting for a few moments on a spar or line of rigging. Some have fallen asleep so; or suffered themselves, though panting with apprehension, to be taken. One of these is a swallow, and another a wheatear. Some kind of a lark, but not recognisable by the English on board, was taken several days since. It had probably been lost from the Western Islands.
[Sidenote: _A “BOARDING” ANECDOTE._]
We have seen but very few vessels; but the meeting with one of them was quite an event in sea life. She was coming from the eastward, wind north, and running free, when we first saw her, but soon after took in her studding-sails and hauled up so as to come near us. When abeam, and about three miles distant, she showed German colours, laid aback her mainsail and lowered a quarter-boat, which we immediately squared away to meet, and ran up our bunting, every body on deck, and great excitement. With a glass we could see her decks loaded with emigrants; and as her masts and sails appeared entirely uninjured, it could only be conjectured that she was distressed for provisions or water. The carpenter was sent to sound the water tanks, and the mate to make an estimate of what stores might be safely spared, while we hastened to our rooms to scribble notes to send home. We finished them soon enough to see a neat boat, rowed by four men, come alongside, and a gentlemanly young officer mount nimbly up the side-ladder. He was received on deck by our second mate, and conducted aft by him to the cabin companion, where the captain, having put on his best dress-coat and new Broadway stove-pipe hat, stood, like a small king, dignifiedly waiting. After the ceremony of presentation, the captain inquired, “Well, sir, what can I have the pleasure of doing for you?” The young man replied that he came from the ship so and so, Captain ——, who sent his compliments, and desired “_Vaat is te news?_” This cool motive for stopping two ships in mid-ocean, with a fresh and favourable wind blowing for each, took the captain plainly aback; but he directly recovered, and taking him into the cabin, gave him a glass of wine and a few minutes’ conversation with a most creditable politeness; a chunk of ice and a piece of fresh meat were passed into the boat, and the steerage passengers threw some tobacco to the men in her. The young officer took our letters, with some cigars and newspapers, and went over the side again, without probably having perceived that we were any less gregarious beings than himself. The curbed energy and suppressed vexation of our officers, however, showed itself before he was well seated in his boat, by the violent language of command, and the rapidity with which the yards were sharpened and the ship again brought to her course.
This occurrence brought to the mind of our “second dickey” that night, a boarding affair of his own, which he told us of in the drollest manner possible. I wish you could hear his drawl, and see his immoveably sober face, but twinkling eye, that made it all seem natural and just like him, as he spun us the yarn.
He was once, he said, round in the Pacific, in a Sag-Harbour whaler, “rayther smart, we accounted her,” when they tried to speak an English frigate, and did not get quite near enough. So, as they had nothing else to do, they “up’t and chased her,” and kept after her without ever getting any nearer for nearly three days. Finally, the wind hauled round ahead and began to blow a little fresh, and they overhauled her very rapidly, so that along about sunset they found themselves coming well to windward of her, as they ran upon opposite tacks. They then hove-to, and he was sent in a boat to board her, and she promptly came-to also, and waited for him.
Dressed in a dungaree jumper, yellow oil-skin hat, and canvass trowsers, he climbed on board the frigate and was immediately addressed by the officer of the deck.
“Now then, sir, what is it?”
“Are you the cap’en of this here frigate, sir?”
“What’s your business?”
“Why, our cap’en sent his compliments to yourn, sir, and—if you are a going home—he wished you’d report the bark Lucreetshy Ann, of Sag-Harbour, Cap’en J. Coffin Starbuck, thirty-seven days from Wahoo (Oahu), seven hundred and fifty barrels of sperm, and two hundred and fifty of whale; guess we shall go in to Tuckeywarner (Talcahuano).”
“Is that all, sir?”
“Well, no; the old man did say, if you was a mind to, he’d like to have me see if I could make a trade with yer for some tobacky. We hadn’t had none now a going on two week, and he’s a most sick. How is’t—yer mind to?”
“Is that all your business, sir?”
“Well—yes; I guess ’tis about all.”
“I think you had better get into your boat, sir.”
He thought so too, when he saw the main-yard immediately after begin to swing round. As the officer stepped below, he went over the side. When he called out to have the painter let go though, he was told to wait a bit, and directly a small parcel of tobacco was handed down and the same officer, looking over the rail, asked,
“Did you say the _Lucretia Ann_?”
“Ay, ay, sir; Lucreetshy Ann, of Sag-Harbour.”
“Mr. Starboard, I believe.”
“‘_Buck_,’ sir, ‘_buck_.’ How about this ’backey?”
The lieutenant, raising his head, his cap, striking the main-sheet as it was being hauled down, was knocked off and fell into the water, when one of the whalers immediately lanced it and held it up dripping.
“Hallo, mister; I say, what shall we do with this cap? Did you mean ter throw it in.”
The officer once more looked over the side, with half a dozen grinning middies, and imperturbably dignified, replied,
“You will do me the favor to present it to Captain Buck, and say to him, if you please, that when he wishes to communicate with one of Her Majesty’s ships again, it will be proper for him to do so in person.”
“Oh, certainly—oh, yes; good night to yer. Here, let’s have that cap. Give way, now, boys,” so saying he clapped it on the top of his old souwester, and as the frigate forged ahead, the boat dropped astern, and was pulled back to the Lucretia Ann.
[Sidenote: _A GALE._]
We have had only three days of any thing like bad weather, and those we enjoyed, I think, quite as much as any. The storm was preceded by some twenty-four hours of a clear, fresh northwester, driving us along on our course with foaming, sparkling, and most exhilarating speed. It gives a fine sensation to be so borne along, like that of riding a great, powerful, and spirited horse, or of dashing yourself through the crashing surf, and in your own body breasting away the billows as they sweep down upon you. Gradually it grew more and more ahead, and blew harder and harder. When we came on deck early in the morning, the horizon seemed within a stone’s throw, and there was a grand sight of dark-marbled swelling waves, rushing on tumultuously, crowding away and trampling under each other, as if panic-struck by the grey, lowering, misty clouds that were sweeping down with an appearance of intense mysterious purpose over them. The expression was of vehement energy blindly directed. The ship, lying-to under trifling storm-sail, seemed to have composed herself for a trial, and, neither advancing nor shrinking back, rose and fell with more than habitual ease and dignity. Having been previously accustomed only to the fidgety movements of a smaller class of vessels, I was greatly surprised and impressed by her deliberate movements; the quietness and simplicity with which she answered the threats of the turbulent elements.
* * * * *
“If only that northwester had continued”—every body is saying—“we might have been in Liverpool by this.” It’s not unfashionable yet at sea to talk about the weather. I am to write about what is most interesting us! Well, the wind and weather. Bad time when it comes to that? Well, now,—here I am, sitting on a trunk, bracing myself between two berths, with my portfolio on my knees—imagine the motion of the vessel, the flickering, inconstant half-light that comes through a narrow piece of inch-thick glass, which the people on deck are constantly crossing, exclamations from them, dash of waves and creaking of timber, and various noises both distracting and _lullabying_, and if you can’t understand the difficulty of thinking connectedly, you may begin to that of writing.
John’s eyes have been bad, and we have read aloud with him a good deal; but I tell you it is hard work even to read on board ship. We have had some good talks, have listened to a good deal of music, and to a bad deal, and had a few staggering hops with the ladies on the quarter deck. We contrived a set of chess-men, cutting them out of card-board, fitting them with cork pedestals, and a pin-point to attach them to the board so they would not slip off or blow away. Charley has had some capital games, and I believe found his match with Dr. M., one of the cabin passengers returning home from the East Indies by way of California, who promises to introduce him at a London chess club.
[Sidenote: _THE VOYAGE._]
I told you in my letter by the pilot-boat, how we had been humbugged about the second cabin. While this has reduced the cost of our passage to a very small sum, we have had almost every comfort that we should have asked. Our room is considerably more spacious, having been intended for a family apartment, and has the advantage of much less motion than those of the first cabin. For a ship’s accommodations it has, too, a quite luxurious degree of ventilation and light. There is a large port in it that we can open at pleasure, having only been obliged to close it during two nights of the gale. Our stores have held out well, and the cook has served us excellently, giving us, particularly, nice fresh rolls, soups, omelettes, and puddings. We have hardly tasted our cured meat, and with this and our hard bread we are now helping out some of our more unfortunate neighbors. Split peas and portable soup (_bouillon_), with fresh and dried fruit, have been valuable stores; even our friends in the cabin have been gladly indebted to us for the latter. Don’t forget when you come to sea to have plenty of fruit.
As the captain desired us to use the quarter-deck privileges, we have associated as we pleased with the first-cabin passengers, and found several valuable acquaintances among them. (Friend, rather, I should call one now.)
Our room-mate, a young Irish surgeon, is a very good fellow, apparently of high professional attainments, and possessed of a power of so concentrating his attention on a book or whatever he is engaged with, as not to be easily disturbed, and a general politeness in yielding to the tastes of the majority that we are greatly beholden to. He is a devoted admirer of Smith O’Brien, and thinks the Irish rising of ’48 would have been successful, if he (O’B.) had not been too strictly honest and honorable a man to lead a popular revolt. Of what he saw and knew at that time, he has given us some interesting particulars, which lead me to think that the revolutionary purpose, insurrection, or at least the insurrectionary purpose, and preparation was much more general, respectable, and formidable, than I have hitherto supposed.
[Sidenote: _EMIGRANT PASSENGERS._]
Of his last winter’s passage, in an emigrant ship, across the Atlantic, he gives us a most thrilling account.
He had been appointed surgeon of a vessel about to sail from a small port in Ireland. She was nearly ready for sea, the passengers collecting and stores taken on board, when some discovery was made that involved the necessity of withdrawing her. Another ship was procured from Liverpool, and the stores, passengers, doctor, and all, hastily transferred to her in the night, as soon as she arrived. They got to sea, and he found there was hardly a particle of any thing in the medicine chest. He begged the captain to put back, but the captain was a stubborn, reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and only laughed at him. That very night the cholera broke out. He went again to the captain, he beseeched him, he threatened him; he told him that on his head must be the consequences; the captain didn’t care a rope yarn for the consequences, he would do any thing else to oblige the doctor, but go back he would not. The doctor turned the pigs out of the long-boat, and made a temporary hospital of it. It was a cold place, but any thing was better than that horrible steerage. Nevertheless, down into the steerage the doctor would himself go every morning, nor leave it till every soul had gone or been carried on deck before him. He searched the ship for something he could make medicine of. The carpenter’s chalk was the only thing that turned up. This he calcined and saved, to be used sparingly. He forced those who were the least sea-sick to become nurses; convalescents and those with less dangerous illness, he placed beds for on the galley and the hen-coops, and made the captain give up his fowls and other delicacies to them. Fortunately fair weather continued, and with sleepless vigilance, and strength, as it seemed to him, almost miraculously sustained, he continued to examine and send on deck for some hours each day, every one of the three hundred passengers. On the first cholera symptoms appearing, he gave the patient chalk, and continued administering it in small but frequent doses until the spasmodic crisis commenced; thence he troubled him only with hot fomentations. The third day out a man died and was buried. The captain read the funeral service, and after the body had disappeared beneath the blue water, the doctor took advantage of the solemn moment again to appeal to him.
“Captain, there are three hundred souls in this ship—”
“Belay that, doctor; I’ll see every soul of ’em in Davy’s locker, sir, before I’ll put my ship back for your cursed physic.”
The doctor said no more, but turned away with a heavy heart to do his duty as best he could.
I cannot describe the horrors of that passage as he would. Nevertheless, as far as simple numbers can give it, you shall have the result.
Out of those three hundred souls, before the ship reached New York, there died one, and he, the doctor declared most soberly, was a very old man, and half dead with a chronic (something) when he came on board. So much for burnt chalk and—fresh air!
But seriously, this story, which, as I have repeated it, I believe is essentially true, though not in itself a painful one, not the less strikingly shows with what villainous barbarity, by disregard or evasion of the laws of England, and the neglect or connivance of the port officers, the emigrant traffic is carried on. Some of the accounts of the three other medical men on board, who are also returning from passages in emigrant ships, would disgust a slave-trader. They say that many of the passengers will never go on deck unless they are driven or carried, and frequently the number of these is so great, that it is impossible to force them out of their berths, and they sometimes lie in them in the most filthy manner possible, without ever stepping out from the first heave of the sickening sea till the American pilot is received on board. Then their wives, husbands, children, as the case may be, who have served them with food during their prostration, get them up, and, if they can afford it, change their garments, throwing the old ones, with the bed and its accumulations, overboard. So, as any one may see, from a dozen ships a day often in New York, they come ashore with no disease but want of energy, but emaciated, enfeebled, infected, and covered with vermin. When we observe the listlessness, even cheerfulness, with which they accept the precarious and dog-like subsistence which, while in this condition, the already crowded city affords them, we see the misery and degradation to which they must have been habituated in their native land. When in a year afterwards we find that the same poor fellows are plainly _growing_ active, hopeful, enterprising, prudent, and, if they have been favourably situated, cleanly, tidy, and actually changing to their very bones as it seems—tight, elastic, well-knit muscles taking the place of flabby flesh, as ambition and blessed discontent take the place of stupid indifference,—we appreciate, as the landlords and the government men of Ireland never can, what are the causes of that degradation and misery.
Dr. M. gives much happier accounts of the English governmental emigrant ships to Australia, in which he has made two voyages. Some few of their arrangements are so entirely commendable, and so obviously demanded by every consideration of decency, humanity, and virtue, that I can only wonder that the law does not require all emigrant vessels to adopt them. Among these, that which is most plainly required, is the division of the steerage into three compartments: married parties with their children in the central one, and unmarried men and women having separate sleeping accommodations in the other two.
[Sidenote: _MIDSHIP PASSENGERS._]
The others of our midship passengers are mostly English artisans, or manufacturing workmen. There are two or three farmers, a number of Irish servants, male and female, and several nondescript adventurers; two Scotchmen only, brothers, both returning from Cuba sugar plantations where they have been employed as engineers. They tell us the people there are all for annexation to the United States, but as they cannot speak Spanish, their information on this point cannot be very extensive. Besides ourselves, there is but one American-born person among them. She is a young woman of quite superior mind, fair and engaging, rather ill in health, going to England in hopes to improve it, and to visit some family friends there. The young men are all hoping the ship will be wrecked, so they can have the pleasure of saving her—or dying in the attempt. One goes into the main-chains and sits there for several hours, all alone, every fine day, for no other reason that we can conceive, but to drop himself easily into the water after her, in case she should fall overboard. There are three or four other women, and as many babies, and little boys and girls. They do not cry very often, but are generally in high spirits, always in the way, frolicking or eating, much fondled and scolded, and very dirty.
The most notable character in our part of the ship, is one Dr. T., another returning emigrant physician. He appears to have been well educated, and is of a wealthy Irish family. His diploma is signed by Sir Astley Cooper, whose autograph we have thus seen. Though a young man, he is all broken down in spirit and body from hard drinking. He makes himself a buffoon for the amusement of the passengers, and some of the young men of the first cabin are so foolish as to reward him sometimes with liquor, which makes him downright crazy. Even the pale-faced student, who kept his neighbours awake with his midnight prayers while he was sea-sick, has participated in this cruel fun. Dr. T. has been _smutten_, as the second mate says, by a young lady of the first cabin, who does not altogether discourage his gallant attentions. He keeps up the habits of a gentleman in the reduction of his circumstances, eating his dinner at four o’clock, (being thus enabled to cook it while the first-cabin people are below eating theirs, which is served at half-past three). He declares it was only to oblige the owners that he took a berth in the second cabin, and he certainly should not have done so, if he had suspected the _promiscuous_ character of the company he should be associated with there. The forenoon he spends in combing his hair and whiskers, cleaning his threadbare coat, smoothing his crushed hat, and polishing his shoes. Now, indeed, since he has become conscious of the tender passion, and can feed on love, he has traded off a part of his stock of bread for a pair of boots, which enables him to dispense with stockings and straps, much to his relief in dances and fencing bouts. Towards noon he comes on deck with his coat buttoned to the neck; he wears a stock and no collar; his hat is set on rakishly; he has a yellow kid glove for his right hand, the thumb only is missing—his thumb, therefore, is stuck under the breast of his coat allowing the rest to be advantageously displayed; his other hand is carried habitually in the mode of Mr. Pickwick, under the skirt of his coat. He has in his mouth the stump of a cigar that he found last night upon the deck, and has saved for the occasion. After walking until it is smoked out with the gentlemen—to whom he manages to give the impression that he has just finished his breakfast—he approaches, with a really elegant air to the ladies, and, gracefully bowing, inquires after their health. Then, after gazing upwards at the sun a moment, he takes the attitude, “Napoleon at St. Helena,” his left hand hidden under his right arm, and, in a deep, tremulous voice, says, “Ourre nooble barruck still cleaves the breeny ailiment, and bears us on with velucitay ’twarrd th’ expectant shoorres of Albeeon’s eel. Ah! what a grrand expanse it is of weeld-washing waterrers! Deleeghtful waytherr, ’pon my worrud.” He is a good fencer, boxer, card player, and trickster; a safe waltzer, even in a rolling ship, and, when half-seas over, dances a jig, hornpipe, or French _pas seul_, and turns a _pirouette_ on the top of the capstan; plays a cracked clarionet, and can get something out of every sort of musical instrument; he spouts theatrically, gives imitations of living actors, sings every thing, _improvises_, and on Sunday chants from the prayer-book, so that even then the religiously inclined may _conscientiously_ enjoy his entertainment. A most rare treasure for a long passage. Some of our passengers declare they would have died of dulness if it had not been for him!
[Sidenote: _CHARACTERS.—A POET._]
There is another Irishman (from the North), who has written a poem as long as Paradise Lost, the manuscript of which he keeps under lock and key, in a small trunk, at the head of his bed, and, as they say, fastened to a life-preserver. It is never out of his head, however, and he manages to find something to quote from it appropriate to every occasion. You might suppose he would be made use of as a butt, but somehow he is not, and is only regarded as a bore. I incline to think him a true poet, for he is a strange fellow, often blundering, stupidly as it seems, upon “good hits,” and, however inconsistently, always speaking with the confidence of true inspiration. We have a godless set around us, and he is very impatient of their card-playing and profanity—particularly if the weather is at all bad—declaring that he is not superstitious, but that he thinks, if a man is ever to stand by his faith, it should be when he is in the midst of the awful ocean, and in an unlucky ship. “Nay,” he asserts again, “he is _not_ superstitious, and no one must accuse him of it, but if he were not principled against it, he would lay a large wager that this ship never does arrive at her destined port.” His poem runs somewhat upon socialism, whether approvingly or condemnatory I have not yet been able quite to understand. I rather think he has a scheme of his own for remodelling society. He uses a good deal of religious phraseology; he is liberal on doctrinal points, does not enlist under any particular church banner, and says himself, that he can bear “any sort of religion (or irreligion) in a man, so he is not a papist.” Towards all persons of the Roman church he entertains the most orthodox contempt and undisguised hatred, as becomes, in his opinion, an Irish _Protestant-born_ man.
There is a good-natured fellow who has been a flat-boatman on the Mississippi, and more lately a squatter somewhere in the wilds of the West. His _painter_ and cat-fish stories, with all his reckless airs and cant river phrases, have much entertained us; of course he has no baggage, but a “heap of plunder.” He has a rough, rowdy, blustering, half-barbarous way with him, and you would judge from his talk sometimes, that he was a perfectly lawless, heartless savage; yet again there is often evident in his behaviour to individuals a singularly delicate sense of propriety and fitness, and there is not a man in the ship with whom I would sooner trust the safety of a woman or child in a time of peril. The great fault of the man is his terrific and uncontrollable indignation at any thing which seems to him mean or unjust, and his judgment or insight of narrow-mindedness is not always reliable.
[Sidenote: _CHARACTERS._]
He has formed a strong friendship, or crony-ship, for an Englishman on board, who is a man of about the same native intelligence, but a strange contrast to him in manner, appearance, and opinions, being short, thick-set, slow of speech, and husky voiced. He is a stone-cutter by trade, and returns to England because, as he says, there is no demand for so _fine work_ as he is able to do, in America, and he will be better paid in London. These two men are always together, and always quarrelling. Indeed, the Englishman has, with his slowness and obstinate deafness to reason on any matter that he has once stated his views of, an endless battery of logic and banterings to reply to, for he is the only defender of an aristocratic form of government amongst us, every other man, Irish, Scotch, or English, being a thorough-going, violent, radical democrat. Most of them, indeed, claim the name of red republican, and carry their ideas of “liberty” far beyond any native American I have known. What is more remarkable and painful, nearly all of them, except the Irish, are professedly Deists or Atheists, or something of the sort, for all their ideas are evidently most crude and confused upon the subject, and amount to nothing but pity, hatred, or contempt for all religious people, as either fools or hypocrites, impostors or imposed upon. There is only one of them that seems to have ever thought upon the matter at all carefully, or to be able to argue upon it, and he is so self-satisfied (precisely what he says, by the way, of every one that argues against him), that he never stops arguing. Of him I will speak again.
A remark of one of the farmers, an Englishman, and a very sensible fellow, upon these sentiments so generally held among our company, seemed to me true and well expressed. I think my observation of the lower class of Englishmen in the United States generally confirms it. “I have often noticed of my countrymen,” said he, “that when they cease to honour the king, they no longer fear God.” That is, as I understand it, when they are led to change the political theory in which they have been instructed, they must lose confidence in a religious creed which they owe about equally to the circumstances of their birth, neither having been adopted from a rational process in their own minds. Seeing the childish absurdity of many forms which they have been trained to consider necessary, natural, and ordered of God, they lose confidence in all their previous ideas that have resulted from a merely receptive education, and religion and royalty are classed together as old-fashioned notions, nursery bugbears, and romances. It is partly the result of the abominable masquerade of words which is still constantly played off in England on all public occasions, clothing government with antiquated false forms of sacredness. The simple majesty and holy authority that depends on the exercise of justice, love, and good judgment, so far from being made more imposing by this mummery, is lost sight of; while all the folly, indiscretion, and injustice of the administration of the law by fallible and unsanctified agents, is inevitably associated in the minds of the ignorant with all that is holy and true.
The only idea now, these our shipmates entertain of Christianity, seemed to be the particular humbug by which the bishops and clergy make the people think that they must support them in purple and fine linen, just as royalty is the humbug on which the queen is borne, and government the humbug by which the aristocracy are carried on their shoulders, all, of course, in combination. And nothing would convince them of the sincerity of the clergy short of their martyrdom—even that, I fear, should the time come for them to act as judges, they would rather attribute to pride, or, at best, to an exceptional deluded mind. With these ideas, nothing but thorough contempt for him, or fear of punishment, would prevent them from putting a bishop to the test of the stake, if he should fall into their hands.
[Sidenote: _DEMOCRACY.—SKEPTICISM._]
While this explanation, if it is correct, should not hinder the promulgation of sound republican views, it strongly opposes the fear that many have, of providing for the lower classes an education that shall make them capable of free independent thinking. It is long ago too late in any country in the world, to prevent the masses from learning that little that is dangerous. Yet, even in England, it is argued by churchmen that education, unless managed by the church, is the foe of their religion! Surely, there must be consciousness of evil in this fear of the light. True religion is not a machinery for fitting men with beliefs and morals. The free man in Christ cannot be the subject of ignorance. It is as much slavish and disloyal to God to be blindly led by a priest, as to be wheedled by a politician; and more than it is to be ruled over and crushed by a tyrant. Let _us_ remember, too, that slaves to party or to creed are not confined to monarchies, but that all churches and governments whose authority is not dependent on the untrammelled and honest judgment of free intelligent minds, are alike ungodly and degrading.
If this view of the connection of liberal politics with religious skepticism is correct, it follows that we may look with less of horror and more of hope upon the infidelity which has so scandalized the national character of France. We may conceive it as the unnatural and convulsive action of a mind which the last thrust of tyranny has suddenly aroused from a long, false dream. Sitting in judgment over the wickedness of tyrants and the licentiousness of courts, it would be strange, unnatural, almost unreasonable, that a people whose religious teachers had been dependent on those tyrants,—had been the most active sycophants of those courts,—teachers, who had taught them that the power there seated was sacred, should hold in reverence for a moment longer, any of the dogmas of a religion so debased. The authority, the stability of the throne, which they have ground to powder and thrown to the free winds, was a part of the very idea of the being and government of the God in whom they had been instructed to believe. Would they not be fools still to worship _such_ an idol of the imagination? And what then? The natural and fearful reaction here also, from torpidity and stupid delusion, which a _little_ knowledge must provoke. And which is best—a dead, superstitious morality, or a live, working-onward infidelity—a slow poison, swallowed in a sugar-coated bolus, or an active, painful, purging black-draught? Let us yet hope (for years are but hours with a nation), that repudiation of lying forms and ignoble use of the name of God, and His Holy Word is but a symptom which precedes a return of healthy fidelity to the truth of God.
* * * * *
To return to the man that I mentioned as being more thoughtful and fond of argument than the others, and who for that reason I have reserved to speak of more particularly, as affording a more tangible illustration of English popular skepticism and agrarianism of the day.
[Sidenote: _A DEIST._]
He was born near Sheffield, had been a good while in the United States, and now returned to England, thinking that some particular art, in smelting, I believe, that he had acquired, would be more valued there. He had certainly been a serious and constant thinker, but his information was limited, superficial, and inaccurate, and he was better at quibbling and picking inconsistencies, than at sustained and thorough reasoning. He was a man that would have a strong influence with a certain kind of honest people, not able to think far originally; and as his activity would infuse itself into them, and he was generally in earnest after something, his influence might possibly in the end be more good than bad. No one could sleep easily, at all events, while he was near them (as, literally, some of us had uncomfortable experience). He had been brought up to the best of the cunning of his parents and friends, a strict ——ist; and nothing can be more characteristic of the blundering progress likely to be made by a man cramped with an “education,” after the cowardly fashion to which the stiff-necked people of England so generally condemn their children, than his account of his coming to Deism.
While quite young, he said that he saw inconsistencies in the religious doctrines which had been battered into him, and for years labored painfully and devoutly to reconcile them; yet each dogma, however contradicted by another, seemed plainly to rest on Bible language (always understanding that language as interpreted by his teachers), constantly looking into every thing else that came in his way, he obtained from itinerant lecturers some knowledge of phrenology, and reading a few books upon it, and practising among his fellow-workmen, he soon acquired not only a good deal of theoretical understanding of the science, and acuteness in discerning character, but considerable skill as a manipulator. So, as he moved from place to place, sometimes, I suspect, giving lectures himself also upon it, he had accumulated experience that to him incontestably proved the foundation in nature of the science. He was still a church-going man, and still worshipped under the shadow of his congenital creed, still trying to reconcile what seemed its discrepancies, when one day he read in the religious newspapers of his sect an article on phrenology, in which the reverend editor, in strong terms, declared its devilish origin and untruth.
His argument, what there was of it, for his strength was mostly spent in ridicule, denunciation, and everlasting condemnation, was based on the assumption that phrenology was inconsistent with free will and moral responsibility, therefore irreconcilable with the Bible. To listen to phrenologists, then, was to close the eye of faith; “if you accept phrenology as truth, you deny God. If the Bible is true, phrenology is false; if phrenology is true, the Bible is a lie. Phrenology is infidelity.”
“Then,” exclaimed he, “_I_ am an infidel, for I _know_ as well as the nose on my face, that phrenology _is_ true.” He forthwith began to study infidel books, soon so scandalized his church, that he was publicly expelled from it, and thenceforth he had looked upon the Bible only as a block in the road, over which every man must leap before he can become free to truth. As the great barrier to the progress of his race, he set himself diligently to searching out every cranny of error and crevice of inconsistency from which he could proudly poke the dust, and expose to reasoners equally shallow with himself; unconscious, poor fellow, that he was merely picking into blind traditions, uninspired translations, and hard-squeezed interpretations; rubbish of mortal church-builders and vain-glorious creed-idolaters, accumulating for nineteen centuries over the real under-laying adamant of divine truth.
He had even yet, while with us, all the zeal and activity in this purpose that characterizes the young convert to any faith; talked to every one that would listen to him, and lugged in his “cause” most pertinaciously with every company he joined, no matter what might be the subject of conversation before he entered. There was little use to argue with him, for he would shift his ground as fast as it was weakened under him, and by changing the question, never knew that he failed to sustain himself. He would insist on making the Bible responsible for every ridiculous notion that foolish or designing men have ever professed to ground upon it, and constantly insisted on taking part in those quarrels, it was little matter to him on which side, which, like the fierce little disputes one often hears in a family, only show the real bond of love, in the common interest, that can make matters so trivial seem important. On the grand and simple purpose of the Bible, from which all Christendom is nursed, he would always avoid to look or argue.
I had myself always managed to avoid discussion with him, till one night, as he came to me on deck to repeat the good things with which he had successively sent to bed the Episcopalian, the Unitarian, the Calvinist, and the poet, fearing that he presumed from my silence that I sympathized with his opinions, and would enjoy his triumphs, I thought it not honest to do so longer; but as I really cared very little for the views one way or the other against which the shafts of his wit had been directed, I desired, if possible, to get him to examine the broad, catholic citadel of which these, at best, were insignificant outworks, in which alone, too, I had sufficient confidence to be willing to encounter him. I found it almost impossible, however, to draw his attention from them. They had been made to appear to him so much the most important part of Christianity, that he could hardly for an instant raise his eyes above them, or see through their obstruction. This difficulty, common enough perhaps anywhere, is peculiarly characteristic of English working-men, and is, as I imagine, a direct result of the prevalent views of education among the religious classes of their country. I have seen immense evil, as I think, arising from it, and have a strong conviction of its exceeding folly and danger. I cannot, however, presume upon the general interest of my readers in the subject, and will not pursue it; but as illustrating what I mean, and also as showing what seems to me the best way to meet the difficulties I have referred to, I will endeavour to give, in the Appendix, for those who care to listen to it, a report of our conversation.[1] It is, of course, impossible to report minutely a conversation after a considerable lapse of time. I wish to give the general ideas brought out, with so much of their connection as shall show the manner in which they were suggested, and the motive of presenting them, as this must often greatly affect their force and character. The reader is requested to bear this remark in mind in other conversations which will be found in this book. It is the idea given, and the exhibition of character presented in any way, that I endeavour to recall and dramatize with all the truth of my memory.
[1] See Appendix A.
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